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NEW STORY *****THE CHAMBER: SEPTEMBER 28, 2018*****

the chamber

Letterman
Staff
May 28, 2015
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None of the fancy intros. The Chamber is a bit salty watching the USA implode in alternate shot matches at the Ryder Cup right now. So on with the show in a Chamber that will hopefully much more resemble Tony Finau in the morning session than Phil Mickelson in the afternoon.

FOOTBALL RECRUITING

With Missouri on a bye week, the coaching staff will be in different parts of the country focusing on recruiting this weekend.

As we mentioned yesterday in another thread, head coach Barry Odom will be in St. Louis all weekend along with A.J. Ofodile. Last night, we know they were at Parkway North checking in on WR commit C.J. Boone and safety target Jalani Williams. Chaminade quarterback Brady Cook told us Odom will be at his school this afternoon. We would certainly expect Ofodile and maybe Odom as well to go to Trinity while they're in St. Louis.

Here is a breakdown of where the other assistants will be:

Andy Hill - Kansas City
Ryan Walters - St. Louis, Florida
Brad Davis - Miami, Houston
Cornell Ford - Florida, Dallas
Joe Jon Finley - Dallas
Barry Odom - Texas, Michigan
Brick Haley - Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana
Vernon Hargreaves - Atlanta, Florida
Derek Dooley - Ohio


Obviously, some big news from yesterday from Midwest analyst Josh Helmholdt regarding Williams was that there will be no Alabama official for him this weekend as was originally planned. So, it appears to be a battle of Tigers - LSU and Missouri. He is supposed to announce his decision on October 12th and will be an early enrollee. Things have been trending well for Missouri here, especially with the other St. Louis targets who have jumped on board including Boone. But don't discount LSU in this one. We can't say for sure which direction this one will go right now.


While Ike was on the visitor list last weekend, he ended up not making it to Columbia. However, it doesn't appear Mizzou is out of the picture for the four-star prospect as he told us he plans to get back to Missouri for a game this season. Right now, Nebraska appears to be a top contender along with Iowa State and Michigan.


According to his Twitter account, safety target Ishmael Burdine visited Virginia last week. He was originally suppose to take an official to Tennessee last weekend, but it looks like the Vols aren't in contention anymore. Burdine is suppose to take an official to Mississippi State this weekend and the Bulldogs appear to be the main contender for Missouri in his recruiting battle.


Just to clarify the quarterback conspiracies going on in the Tiger's Lair right now. Bazelak is the quarterback commit. The staff isn't cooling on him. Dooley will be at his game tonight.

Missouri is not recruiting IMG Academy quarterback David Baldwin despite an article posted recently from another outlet. We haven't heard back from Lance Legendre, but we don't think there is a anything substantial there either in terms of communication. One of our colleagues watched Legendre last night and questions whether he is a Power Five level quarterback (not whether he is a Power Five level athlete).

Missouri will be on the lookout to add another quarterback in this class, it will mostly likely be of the grad transfer variety. Obviously a high profile one became available this week in Kelly Bryant. I'm sure Missouri will reach out when they can, so will a majority of other power five programs.

The whole grad transfer thing has been a hot topic the last few weeks. Some have gotten worked up thinking that means we are giving up on the quarterbacks currently on Missouri's roster. That's not the case. But it's not blind speculation on our part that Missouri is going to look at a grad transfer.

Look at it this way: With Micah Wilson and Taylor Powell on the roster, Missouri went after a juco quarterback in the late signing period. You simply don't do that unless you're expecting the juco guy to come in and compete for (and probably win) the backup job. Then Lindsey Scott Jr. fell to fourth string after fall camp. It's simple common sense that the Missouri staff isn't sold next year's starter is on the roster right now. It doesn't mean one of those three guys couldn't win the job, but it does mean the staff isn't sold it has next year's starter on the roster. It's a safe bet that at least one and maybe even two quarterbacks will leave after this season or after spring football. Asking Bazelak to come in and start as a true freshman is a tall task. Missouri would be irresponsible NOT to look at a grad transfer.

There were some tweets from Mizzou commitments earlier this week hinting at another commitment coming. We think we'll have news of that some time this weekend. Stay tuned. As soon as we're able to confirm it and say more, we will.

Last thing: Boone told us this week that he'll still consider taking more visits, but our information is that he is very, very likely to sign with Missouri. He's become a very vocal recruiter for this class and we don't see him anywhere else in the end.

BASKETBALL RECRUITING

So the big news was the commitment of Mario McKinney this week. That got Missouri's class started. There are varying opinions on McKinney's game and they're all over the map. We've seen him play quite a bit in the last 18 months and here's our take:

He's a great athlete with a great motor. He plays very hard. He is good at getting to the rim. He's not a great shooter. Can he improve that enough to develop into an all-around offensive threat? Right now, he can get to the rim against good competition (can he do it against elite competition?) and he's a pretty good passer. We think he can be a big asset on the defensive end. He's a good rotational player who could be a solid starter as a junior or maybe even as a sophomore optimistically. We see McKinney as a guy who can be a good third or fourth player on an NCAA Tournament team, but he's not going to be the star on one.

The immediate question after McKinney's commitment was what does it mean for the Tigers' chances at E.J. Liddell?

Here's what we know: Liddell is going to announce his commitment on Monday. It will be either Illinois, Mizzou or Ohio State. A commitment video is being done.

That's the extent of what we know.

In the last week, @GabeD has put in an Ohio State prediction along with the same from national analysts Eric Bossi and Corey Evans and our Illinois basketball writer. The Buckeyes are definitely considered the odds on favorite right now. Common sense says the decision has been made. But we've had some people tell us in the last 24 hours, they don't believe that necessarily to be true at this point. Liddell's family would like him close to home. We've been told the father is a big Cuonzo Martin fan and is in Missouri's corner. But we've also been told all things being equal, Liddell himself probably prefers OSU. At some point in the last 48 hours, we've heard the family was supposed to sit down, talk things over and come to a final decision. We can't promise you that's happened because we weren't invited to that meeting and Liddell isn't doing interviews.

We won't say this one is over. Our expectation is that it will be Ohio State, but we're leaving the door cracked for a last-minute surprise. If that happens, it's our belief--as it has been for a while--that it would be Missouri over Illinois. Those who cover Illinois seem to think if it's not Ohio State, it will be the Illini. It's pretty rare that you get to commitment day without a pretty good idea of what's going to happen. But that may be the case here. Either way, we should know in about three days.

The next question up is: If Liddell goes elsewhere, where does Missouri turn? The simple truth is we don't know. We're certain the staff has backup plans, but we don't know what they are right now. We'd expect some juco wings/forwards to be targeted if Missouri misses on Liddell and if that happens, we'll do everything we can to confirm who those will be. But as of this morning, we don't have a great feel for which direction the class goes without Liddell.

Missing Liddell would also put increased importance on the 2020 class. The Tigers are still definitely pursuing Caleb Love and McKinney's commitment should be a big help in the recruitment of Cam'Ron Fletcher. Alex Schiffer tweeted yesterday that the Tigers were going to watch Josh Christopher and there was also a report that they were checking out three-star big man John Hugley.

That's where we stand right now. Back to seeing if Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau can manage to make their match at least last two-and-a-half hours.
 
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